


Where You Go

by mustdefine



Category: Gymnastics RPF
Genre: Friendship, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-09-25
Updated: 2012-09-25
Packaged: 2017-11-20 19:05:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 512
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/588656
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mustdefine/pseuds/mustdefine
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Aliya reacts when her coach is fired after the Olympics.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Where You Go

Aleksandr has been holed up in his sorry excuse for an office all day. Too many phone calls and emails—endless emails. He’d like to dump all this paperwork on the Board’s doorstep, anchor it under a steaming pile of bovine excrement, and go drown his sorrows in several bottles of vodka. Still, he will not leave Evgeny with this mess.

He sends one more email and sits back in his chair with a sigh. His back hurts. He doesn’t remember becoming an old man. But aging is inevitable, like politics.

Fucking politics.

Aleksandr passes a hand over his tired eyes. When he drops it, she is standing in the doorway.

“Aliya. What is it?”

“I couldn’t find you after morning workout.”

“Things do to,  _solnyshko_.”

“You should go home,” she says.

“Can’t yet. Go enjoy Mallorca with your friends. I have work.”

Aliya cannot be put off that easily. “Why give them any more of your time?” she demands, coming forward. “You have given so much and they have thrown it in your face.”

 He sighs and gets up to retrieve a book from the stack on the shelf. “I will be done soon enough.”

“And will you be done with me, also?”

The note of uncertainty makes him turn. He looks back at her: tan from the Spanish sun, sleekly muscled, eyes burning with emotion. He has known her since she was a child, and he has seen her in unimaginable pain and at the height of glory. The thought of leaving her tears at him. Yet when he imagines staying, imagines swallowing the injustice and insidious jealousy of the Rodienenkos’ judgment, he sees himself eaten away as if by poison.

And so he gives her an honest answer. They are always honest, the two of them. “It is too soon to say.”

She crosses her arms. “You are thinking of leaving. You wouldn’t say that if you weren’t.”

“It is too soon to say,” he repeats.

“You will go to another country. Somewhere they’ll appreciate you. Will you return to America? Must we work against each other?”

“I hope not.”

She bites her lip. He waits for whatever she has to say, reading the signs of inward struggle. An eternity passes. Then she walks over and puts her arms around him as far as she can reach.

“Where you go, I go,” Aliya says into his jacket.

“ _Malyshka,_ ” he says, moved. He doesn’t tell her any of the things they both know: that what she says is impossible, or that she should stay with her team, or that he will miss her beyond words. Instead he holds his stubborn athlete close as a father would his daughter.

 They stand like that for a few moments, no more. Aliya steps back and admonishes, “Don’t work too hard. We have practice in the morning and someone needs to put the fear of God into Tanya.”

“Telling me how to do my job again,  _solnyshko_?”

Aliya’s eyes are sad, but her grin is the same, like a secret shared.

“Always,” she says.


End file.
